Hi incurable travellers, Another typical dessert from Langhe and Roero for real connoisseurs is ‘bonet’.

Ingredients of Bonet:

4 eggs

8 spoons of powdered sugar

A glass of milk

A handful of crumbles amaretti cookies

A spoon of chocolate powder

Half a glass of rum

Five tablespoons of sugar

Instructions of Bonet:

Mix three or four eggs with the powdered sugar and dissolve with a glass of lukewarm milk, add a handful of crumbles amaretti, a tablespoon of powdered chocolate and a bit of rum.

Mix everything with a wooden spoon or a whisk. Apart caramelize three or four spoonfuls of sugar moistened with a little bit of water so that it is leaking and let it cook.

As soon as you see the sugar turning toffee-coloured, remove it from the heat and pour it in the appropriate mould you have already kept warm. The sugar should cover the bottom and the sides of the mould. Let it cool.

Pour the previously prepared compound in the same mould and stand it in a roasting tin containing enough just-boiled water to come a third to halfway up the sides of the tin. Cook bain-marie style on the burner or better in the oven.

The cream should cook for about an hour. When it is coagulated, remove it from the bain-marie, let it rest for a few hours in the fridge. Serve the bonet cold, perhaps decorating it with some amaretti cookies.

Hi incurable travellers, In our journey to Langhe and Roero, a chapter must be dedicated to the desserts of the territory, whom noblest ingredient is the round and delicate-flavoured hazelnut (PGI), which is used in different ways.

It is possible to taste some delicious plain or round biscuits such as the famous Lady’s kisses Baci di dama with hazelnut flour and obviously chocolate, let’s keep in mind that Alba is the birthplace of Ferrero company.

Apart from Lady’s kisses Baci di dama, delicious cookies, hazelnut flour can be used also to make a fragrant cake – round and gentle – as it is called the typical hazelnut of the area.

Ingredients for the lady’s kisses Baci di dama:

200 g Langhe’s ‘tonda e gentile’ hazelnut variety

200 g big amaretti

100 g flour

100 g potato flour

1 spoon of unsweetened cocoa powder

1 shot glass of dry Marsala

3 eggs

200 g butter

200 g sugar

Instructions for the lady’s kisses Baci di dama:

Toast the shelled hazelnuts in the oven. Grind them in a pestle uniformly (if using a blender pulse briefly so as not to grind hazelnuts into a fat powder which hardly dissolves in the compound of the cake).

Soften two small pieces of butter with 200 g of sugar on a low flame; add three egg yolks, one at a time, always stirring; pour the ground hazelnuts and crumbled almonds, stir well. Then it is the turn of the flour and potato flour, finally of the unsweetened cocoa and last of Marsala.

Add three egg whites to the compound incorporating them accurately.

Pour the mixture into a pan so that it does not exceed two centimetres in height. Put in the oven preheated to 180° and bake. Check the doneness with a toothpick after 20/25 minutes.

Serve them cold.

On chilly winter days, it may be accompanied by hot zabaglione with Moscato d’Asti.

The story of my food and wine tour in Langhe and Roero thanks to Italydifferent continues in the following article: Recipe of Bonet, while if you missed the first part of the article I suggest that you read: Food and wine in Langhe, ut if you are an incurable traveller interested in Langhe and Roero under the historical, artistic and cultural aspect, the article for you is: What to see in Langhe.

Hi incurable travellers, Yesterday I told you about the piedmontese fritto misto which is often accompanied by sauces such as ‘cognà’ or red or green ‘bagnetto’.

Cognà is a sauce made with grapes must, naturally cold, which accompanies also boiled meat, polenta or can be spread on a slice of bread for an energetic snack.

In the farmhouse, during the pressing, a bit of must is taken and boiled with some toasted hazelnuts, pieces of fruit, and then aromatised with cinnamon and cloves.

The ‘bagnetto verde’ is fabulous with boiled meat and together with the ‘bagna cauda’ represents the union between cuisine and history of the territory.

In the regions of Langhe and Roero there was the ancient salt road. To pay a lower duty while transporting this precious good, casks with half salt and half anchovies were prepared. Since they could not be wasted, many poor recipes born. Among them, the anchovies ‘in verde’, cognà, bagna cauda and the wonderful bagnetto verde.

Recipe of cognà: ingredients

A handful of parsley

2 cloves of garlic

3 anchovies

breadcrumbs soaked in vinegar

If needed:

Hot pepper

1 hard-boiled egg yolk

Recipe of cognà: instructions:

Mince the parsley, the garlic, the cleaned anchovies, breadcrumbs soaked in vinegar and a pinch of salt, meld everything with olive oil until reaching a good consistence. If you like, add also some hot pepper or a hard-boiled egg yolk to the mixture above.

Cognà should be prepared some hours before use.

The story of my food and wine tour in Langhe and Roero thanks to Italydifferent continues in the article Ladys kisses (Baci di dama), while if you missed the first chapter I suggest that you check: Food and Wine in Langhe, but if you are incurable travellers interested in Langhe and Roero under the historical, artistic and cultural aspect, the article for you is: What to see in Langhe: Alba.

Hi incurable travellers, Our meal in Langhe and Roero in the footsteps of tradition continues with ‘ravioli del plin’ – tasty rectangular agnolotti with a filling of braised meat, mixed with rice and seasoned with meat sauces or with the more traditional seasoning butter and sage; or with a plate of steaming ‘tajarin all’albese’, which are similar to the classic tagliolini but much thinner.

There is a discussion going on about their preparation: those who prefer the whites and those who abound with the yolks, to obtain a more golden product or to balance the flavours.

For the main courses, there is a world of scents and flavours: from the strongest, such as ‘selvaggina (game meat) in salmà’ or hare ‘al civet’, to the finest, like fondue with truffles. Among the most usual we can mention roasts and boiled meat, finally there is the plate for celebrations by vocation, the most baroque of Alba’s plates: mixed fried platter or fritto misto.

The mixed fried platter has a variety and richness of components over-abundant of flavours, sometimes even contrasting, sour, sweet, bitter. We can find all the products from the farm in it: veal, lamb, pork, sausages, vegetables, apples, desserts and more.

Ingredients for the fritto misto or mixed fried platter for five persons:

250 gr of lamb chops

250 gr of calf ribs

150 gr of brains

150 gr of sweetbread

150 gr of pork bone marrow

150 gr of liver

300 gr pig’s trotters

150 gr of Porcini mushrooms

150 gr cauliflower

200 gr of sausage

5 amaretti

2 apples

3 carrots

1 fennel

2 zucchini

5 caponèt (filled zucchini flowers)

2 artichokes

1 eggplant

5 croquettes

1 sweet fries

wheat flour

eggs

breadcrumbs

oil

Instructions of mixed fried platter:

Boil, clean or skin each ingredient for the mixed fried, dip it in flour, whipped eggs and coat it with breadcrumbs. Fry in abundant hot oil until golden brown. Serve very hot.

Brown the sausage and the liver in butter and oil and dip them in flour, egg and breadcrumbs.

To prepare the apples, dip them in a batter made of eggs, flour and milk, then cover them with breadcrumbs and fry.

For the croquettes, take a piece of stew, a piece of brains cooked in butter and a slice of ham, mince everything, add an egg yolk and béchamel. Stir everything adding parmesan cheese and a pinch of ground nutmeg. Shape some balls, dip them in flour, egg, breadcrumbs and fry.

The story of my food and wine tour in Langhe and Roero thanks to Italydifferent continues in this article: Recipe of Cognà, while if you missed the first chapter I suggest that you check: Food and Wine in Langhe, but if you are incurable travellers interested in Langhe and Roero under the historical, artistic and cultural aspect, the article for you is: What to see in Langhe: Alba.

A meal in Langhe and Roero can never start without a heap of starters. Among the most traditional ones, we can include the ‘tartare’, with raw beef fillet rigorously beaten with knife and seasoned with oil and salt and the ‘vitello tonné’, which has nothing to do with tuna, but its name is affected by some French resonances.

The vitello tonné recipe has about two hundred years of life and provides a delicious sauce to spread on thin slices of veal.

Ingredients for vitello tonné:

A veal thigh

An onion

Two cloves

Two pepper grains

A piece of cinnamon

Two bay leaves

Butter

Ten anchovies

A spoonful of wheat flour

A hard-boiled egg yolk

Ten capers

White vinegar

Water

Salt

Directions of vitello tonné:

Take the veal thigh, cover it with equal parts of white vinegar and water; add salt, an onion, two cloves, two grains of pepper, a piece of cinnamon and two laurel leaves and let it rest.

The next day, in a saucepan, put the meat to brown with a bit of butter. Meanwhile, melt ten well cleaned anchovies in soft butter; add a tablespoon of flour, a grinded egg yolk; add the marinade where the meat has already been resting and bake.

When the sauce is congealed, add grinded capers previously washed in hot water and pass the intingulum to the sieve. Remove the meat; slice and cover it with the sauce.

Vitello tonné is served cold.

There is also a modern revision of this well-known recipe of Langhe and Roero in which the sauce is prepared with mayonnaise, adding the capers previously washed and finely chopped and the tuna in oil grinded.

The story of my food and wine tour in Langhe and Roero thanks to Italydifferent continues in the following article: Mixer fried platter, while if you missed the first part of the article I suggest that you read: Food and wine in Langhe, ut if you are an incurable traveller interested in Langhe and Roero under the historical, artistic and cultural aspect, the article for you is: What to see in Langhe.